As of December 10th, You need to be sixteen to hold an Aussie.Zone account
I know - you're very probably already sixteen. That's why we are here.
If you've managed to miss the coming change in the law, I envy you. This silly law has taken up several hours of my year that could have been spent doing something more productive like watching Golden Girls.
But, the law is here now and we need to take "Reasonable Steps" to ensure that everyone is over sixteen. If you are wondering what "reasonable steps" is, then join the club. Nobody really knows. What I do know is that we have to start to make an effort to be sure that no young'uns are here against the law.
To that end, we have hired a helpful bot called Molly. She's an expert at being sixteen and she's just been told that it's her job is to verify all your ages. Here she is:
What's next? Well, in the first phase we ask that you drop her a Message that verifies you are over 16. She doesn't want to see your government ID. Some ideas that she would accept are:
A passenger takes a photo of your username on a sheet of paper with you driving (please don't make this one a selfie). Faces not required.
A photo of your username with a glass of alcohol at a bar.
A convincing spiel that would only come from someone older than sixteen (Can you tell Molly who Samantha is?). Can you tell her about the Breakfast Club that only 70's/80's kids from Queensland would know?
Anything else you can think of that only someone over sixteen could/would do.
There's no need to spend a lot of time on this. At this point, I'll go through the users who have messaged her and compile a list of people who have verified their age. You can be creative. Just be aware that there's an infinitesimal chance (but not zero) that whatever you send may be sent to some government agency to demonstrate that we are complying with the law.
How do you stop a kid from moving their account to one of the thousands of non-Australian Lemmy Instances and just continuing on with their day? I can't. The fact that the law is totally ineffectual in the context of Lemmy is beside the point. We clearly meet the definition of a Social Media platform according to the law, and we are based in Australia. So we have to comply, even if it is pointless.
Are you aware that this is pointless and kids are going to get around it? I know that teenage-me sure would have. But again, that's beside the point. We need to comply with the law.
Will you accept a photo of me in my undies? Ok, this one isn't frequent from previous discussions on the law, but I wanted to include it in case. Please don't send NSFW photos to show you are over age.
melbaboutown - 1w
I no longer drink, don’t have a car and don’t wish to appear in any photos. And despite having been a redditor for 12 years, changing handles frequently for privacy means I’ve been Melbaboutown for much less than that. I’m not sharing any other accounts as the long term ones are doxable.
It sucks that Lemmy is being forced to do this and I wouldn’t even humour it for a second if it wasn’t you guys asking.
Guess if I want to keep talking to you awesome units Molly is just going to have to hear about my calcium pills, gaming off floppy discs as a child, and how I still have the Walkman I owned as a teen. Also Video Ezy and Blockbuster.
Whether the government wants to believe me is up to them.
28
Taleya - 1w
I just added my aussie.zone nick to my reddit profile. Considering that account itself is almost a teenager, should be good.
Don't make me break out my livejournal. I'll do it. I'm a madwoman.
18
melbaboutown - 1w
Annoyingly I deleted my MySpace, Friendster and all my old school forums are gone.
My first Facebook account probably is 16 (late adopter) but I shut it down and wouldn’t be sharing that anyway
5
Catfish - 1w
Can't break out livejournal without agreeing to the stupid Russian t&c we all ported to Dreamwidth to avoid. I could get back into that one or Fetlife but Nath might faint.
4
PeelerSheila - 1w
I talked about the first album I ever bought (midnight oil's 10-1 album), my first boyfriend's car (1979 Gemini), the first cassingle I ever bought (Suzanne Vega) and my first picture disc (Bros). I feel like if you're under 16 you wouldn't understand a percentage of that statement 😆
6
Nath - 1w
If it was Tom's Diner, that song has a special place in digital music history. It was the test song for what became the MP3 standard.
5
PeelerSheila - 1w
It was!
2
Zagorath - 1w
gaming off floppy discs as a child
Dang. I'm a little younger than you. We had floppy disks when I was in year 1 & 2, but I remember having a Powerpoint project where some of the kids' Powerpoint files were too big to fit on a floppy.
5
melbaboutown - 1w
I think this was my first game as a little tacker. Text based.
Haha yeah I know! I was actually watching a streamer (who mostly streams completely unrelated stuff—Photoshopping thumbnails for others' aoe2 YouTube channels) just a few weeks ago, and the topic of Zoombinis came up. She's apparently the moderator of the Zoombinis speedrunning records. Which...is apparently a thing.
1
Catfish - 1w
University was a horror of finding out your assignment was too big to save on the floppy you had picked, and going through your whole stash trying to find one it would fit on, or having to delete some file share game before you lost the whole thing.
2
Zagorath - 1w
Dayum, you were using floppies to hold multiple different unrelated files? Like a USB today?
3
Nath - 1w
Most of us carried around about 10 floppies in a case. I had a fancy case that held 15 floppies and expanded out like a little set of stairs.
Most files we carried around were well under 100kb. We didn't carry photos around, digital cameras weren't a thing and we didn't scan photos unless they were going into a specific file or something.
If I did have to carry a file that was larger than 1.44mb, I used arj to compress it and split the archive into 1440kb volumes. Arj had better compression than zip.
5
Catfish - 1w
Yes? Had to get them to campus to print and drop in the department office box to get stamped by 5pm or points off.
3
Zagorath - 1w
Damn, that's just wild to me. As I said above, I came in near the end of their era, so just storing one project on there was at times stretching the limits of what they could do. It's kind of incredible to think of how far we've come.
3
Catfish - 1w
No inbuilt hard drive, so it really did fucking matter! (Mac Plus and SE) still love some of the games. Try Fools Errand if you can get the emulator to work 😺
3
MisterFrog - 1w
I suspect if this comes to a head you can just change instances to one offshore .
If they start blocking tiny websites "not complying" then shit has really hit the fan.
My pet conspiracy theory is that corporations pushed for this so they can collect your ID and even more personal information you should never share with anyone on the internet.
Fuck this law is so dumb
4
melbaboutown - 1w
I might, it’s just a hassle. I can’t be stuffed.
And I find it kinda plausible. Maybe it wasn’t the main driver, that’s the Australian government having a knee jerk response to look like they’re solving a complex problem. But for lucrative data brokers it is very very convenient.
It would have perhaps been better to give under 16s dumb phones and have a family computer room, or just talk to your damn kid about what they’re doing and seeing online. But that doesn’t dump highly sensitive info out to create advertising profiles and sell.
3
Skavau - 4day
Hi, Brit here.
I'm confused. I thought the rules from Australia here only applied to specific platforms rather than anywhere. I read somewhere about specific platforms being considered exempt. The likelihood to me that the Australian government (or your Ofcom equivalent) even know about the Fediverse to me seems slim.
2
melbaboutown - 4day
They seem to for now?
From what I can tell these relaxed measures for Aussie Zone are pre-emptive, to establish that ‘reasonable steps’ were taken and hopefully avoid being pressured to demand more intrusive verification in future.
However that doesn’t mean things won’t change. Afaik Dreamwidth and 4chan are litigating to not have to comply. And more sites could be brought in during the second wave.
I see the UK government has noticed Bsky (part of the fediverse) and demanded verification there so it’s possible ours might learn what it is as well.
Creepily the UK also seem to be making tentative noises about VPNs now.
2
Skavau - 3day
However that doesn’t mean things won’t change. Afaik Dreamwidth and 4chan are litigating to not have to comply. And more sites could be brought in during the second wave.
What could Australia possibly do, other than geoblocking 4chan, if they don't comply exactly?
I see the UK government has noticed Bsky (part of the fediverse) and demanded verification there so it’s possible ours might learn what it is as well.
Bluesky is much larger than the Fediverse here to be fair. It's not the same. Moreover, they'd have to individually investigate hundreds of instances as they are all independently run.
Creepily the UK also seem to be making tentative noises about VPNs now.
Eh, nothing concrete. What are you referring to?
3
melbaboutown - 3day
They could probably just geoblock 4chan I guess? Maybe? Or try to? I don’t know what the government think they’re going to do. But Mississippi residents did get geoblocked from Bsky.
I hope you’re right and we just keep flying under the radar. Especially as they’d probably try to use AI for the workload of hundreds of instances, with not great outcomes.
Yeah, nothing concrete. And they claimed to have nothing concrete in mind. But they’re definitely thinking about it, I’ll see if I can find the article again
Edit: Ok, so they ‘have no plan to ban VPNs’, but ‘are looking very closely into their usage’. I have no idea what that means.
They could probably just geoblock 4chan I guess? Maybe? Or try to? I don’t know what the government think they’re going to do. But Mississippi residents did get geoblocked from Bsky.
Well yeah, literally all they could do is geoblock 4chan.
Edit: Ok, so they ‘have no plan to ban VPNs’, but ‘are looking very closely into their usage’. I have no idea what that means.
I am a Brit.
Absolutely nothing lol.
2
Salvo - 2day
Great idea.
Adding Lemmy and Mastodon to my 4-digit Slashdot.org profile now.
Well the Mighty Boosh was 20 years ago, and I have clearly drunk baileys from a shoe...
.. but in seriousness thanks Nath. Love this little corner of the interwebs and appreciate you dealing with this stupidity to keep it rolling
18
eureka - 1w
I assert that imoldgreeeg..... IS ACTUALLY YOUNG GREEEG!
6
𝙻𝚘𝚗𝚐𝙼𝚊𝚌𝚃𝚘𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚍𝚄𝚙 - 1w
Talk to molly about your mangina !
2
tau - 1w
One of the places I work at has a display cabinet showing historical media formats and devices, seeing things in it like the zip disc and the Sony camera that took floppies always makes me feel like Elrond:
16
leftzero @lemmy.dbzer0.com - 1w
Zip disks ain't that old!
Fixing computers on location I once saw a word processor (as in, a very limited specialised computer for writing text, not the software for general purpose computers that killed 'em) on display. Now that was old.
(Not as old as the completely mechanical typewriter I wrote my school essays with, though.)
4
SaneMartigan - 1w
Mum had a Compaq with a 5.25" in the side of the screen. Ran Zork and some lame work shit she needed.
5
tau - 1w
Zip disks ain’t that old!
That's what I like to think as well, but I guess it has been a while. It's like how I think 90s cars are still fairly recent until I see ones rolling around with historic rego...
4
No1 - 1w
Just a thanks to everyone involved with keeping things running here and dealing with not only our stupidity, but the stupidity of our stupid government.
And, Molly! Whoooooo, girrrrrrrrrrrrl! You have a job ahead of you! Good luck and thank you to you too!
(Edit: And I think I messed up my submission already sorry 🫣)
15
shirro - 1w
This account will be visiting from another geolocation which isn't subject to Australian laws and will henceforth identify as a foreign bot trying to disrupt Australian society and promote disunity. I request to be labelled as a foreign asset, not subject to age authorisation. In small print add "works for gambling industry, owns coal mine, makes political donations, VIP, mates with Albo and the Pope"
13
WIZARD POPE💫 - 1w
Well don't drag me into disrupting australian society please. I have other stuff on my plate already.
3
TheFermentalist @reddthat.com - 1w
What if I promise faithfully (so help me Dog) that I am over 16?
If that doesn’t work, my 20 year old son will vouch for me. And anyone else willing to pay him.
13
Molly - 1w
Thanks for bringing that up. The good news is that it only affects users at our instance. I should make that clearer on the title. That's one of the reasons the law is pointless. A kid can sign up at another instance that isn't in Australia and be otherwise unaffected.
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eureka - 1w
Finally, an intelligent bot. 🧪🔬
3
Molly - 1w
Next, we'll invent intelligent users.
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johnwicksdog - 1w
These strategies are quite nice. I was worried I would have to show my license which I’m not entirely comfortable with. I can easily talk about how my friend skateboarded to my house after the breakfast club first aired so we could excitedly discuss it and I could take a photo of drinking a pint while driving. Easy.
12
PeelerSheila - 6day
Just want to add at this point that I am loving this post and all the responses. Getting old is so bittersweet 😔
12
eatham 🇦🇺 - 1w
What happens if I don't get around to it by the 10th? Will my account be deleted, or temporarily disabled until I provide proof? I likely won't be able to do it in time.
Also, is it ok to send govt ID with the info blacked out (with Date of birth visible)?
11
Nath - 1w
This is the first round of verification. There will be more than one. At some point I'll resort to sending direct messages to stragglers.
The law is vague about our requirements. It's vague on lots of things.
We need to proactively ban users who identify themselves as children. We don't have to immediately ban every unverified account, but at some point we're going to need to have some sort of record of age verification for active users.
Waste of everyone's time? Yep.
15
18107 - 1w
I don't envy your position.
I'm certain that this new law has nothing to do with protecting children, and only exists to provide a way for AI companies to start making money.
3
Gorgritch_Umie_Killa - 1w
Na, its to pop a cultural crisis balloon the media was blowing up last year.
There will be some tangential benefits, i think the no alcohol before 18 is a good analogy, the only problem is there can be some benefits to social media, whereas theres not a really an upside to alcohol.
But largely its due to talk-back wankers, and the Government not wanting a distracting fake cultural crisis. Commercial media in this country suck large round ones.
Anyway, thats my view.
0
Korhaka @sopuli.xyz - 1w
I do worry where this is going as more countries do this kind of shit.
2
Nath - 1w
On that front, we're a little fortunate. One of the whitepapers I saw on the legislation essentially spruiked a whole industry poised to offer sites 'age verification services'. By getting in ahead of all that and verifying our users using methods our own users themselves define, we're avoiding that noise.
And the users have been wonderful. I've always loved the support of this crowd and they haven't let us down on this matter, either. By simply leaving it with you all to go ahead and define your own verification means, you've come up with loads of unique stuff that I would never have thought of. And by keeping it all funnelled to DMs the way we have, no AI is going to learn anything from you.
If we are singled out to demonstrate that we took reasonable steps, I'd love to present the evidence that we have complied with the legislation. They can't complain that our methods fail to meet some standard, as they haven't provided a standard. I honestly believe I could go all the way to court with the messages that you've sent in as "any reasonable person would believe this was sent by someone over sixteen". If that turns into some sort of thing that goes 'ok, you need to do x to verify ages in future', we've beaten all such changes by being grandfathered in on our own system.
5
Eagle - 1w
I'd love for you to share the de-identified messages. We're a clever bunch here and I'd love to see how we all responded.
3
Nath - 1w
Maybe a few of them and after a bit. I can't think of any examples so far of two people doing the same thing, but I also don't want to take dozens of means off the table for future respondents. One user already shared his genius method, and I suppose that method is still available for others to use. 😆
5
Dimand - 1w
There is no way some other lazy person hasn't done the same thing I did.
2
SteveTech - 1w
I likely won't be able to do it in time.
Yeah same. I'm currently overseas and still will be on the 10th. I don't drink, and I'm born in the earlyish noughties so I can't provide a very convincing spiel.
3
Fleur_ - 1w
After reading through the post I will be jumping ship, later boys I'll see you in another instance
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𝚝𝚛𝚔 - 1w
How about an account I created 20 years ago, does that count? 😁
That would absolutely count if you can somehow send Molly a message she can verify from that account. Make a post form your sixteen-year old Whirlpool/Reddit/etc account saying that you are user@aussie.zone and then send the link to the post to Molly. Sorted.
12
𝚝𝚛𝚔 - 1w
Added my username to the profile page and messaged that, cause I'm proactive 💪💪
I missed out on a six-digit icq number by about a week. My mate. My mate didn't miss out and yeah - it was quite the flex giving out his six digit icq.
5
𝙻𝚘𝚗𝚐𝙼𝚊𝚌𝚃𝚘𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚍𝚄𝚙 - 1w
It's funny how the mainstream media has focused only on listing the big social media giants as being the targets.
I've also had a message from another not so mainstream hookup app that the proof of age is coming and to prepared to comply. How remains to be seen.
I must say I really like the idea of ordering a drink at a bar with the user name.
9
Gorgritch_Umie_Killa - 1w
Is there going to be a spike in alcohol sales because of this ban?
Could i even say... beer and pints.. to the moon?!? 🌜🪙🍺💱🍻💲🌛
Watch out bars of Australia! Here comes the Lemmy wave!
4
pHr34kY @lemmy.world - 1w
I'll write my username above my pubes with a sharpie. That'll prove I'm 16, yeah?
9
CEOofmyhouse56 - 1w
What do you think this is bush week?
20
Gibsonhasafluffybutt - 1w
🤣🤣🤣🤣
4
Taleya - 1w
Everyone photograph your antacid collection!
6
sola - 1w
Thanks for your efforts.
You can delete this account if you feel the need to, not interested in all verification stuff, even if is half arsed.
Actually joined the Internet when I was 16 back in 1994. Back then using Excite to search the Internet was better than what Google is today.
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SaneMartigan - 1w
You can delete this account if you feel the need to, not interested in all verification stuff, even if is half arsed.
Massively adult take right here.
8
Nath - 1w
While we have tried to make the verification system as light-touch and unobtrusive as we can, we need to accept that this policy will cost us users. Just as we have no influence on government policy, we have no control on how people will respond to our willingness to obey the law.
I even understand it. If Canada introduced some sort of law that required me to do something I couldn't justify, I'd likely let my lemmy.ca test account lapse. People are going to evaluate their own position from evaluating the variables in front of them. And some of them are going to come down on their Aussie.Zone account not being worth that much to them. Which is totally fine.
5
SaneMartigan - 1w
I know you're probably getting hassle comments about these laws and policies. I hope everyone on the site appreciates these bullshit hoops you're being made to jump through. You could just shut the site down and be done with it.
4
Nath - 1w
We aren't copping any abuse. Everyone understands that this isn't coming from us and that there is no point hassling us over it.
Shutting the instance down is not on the cards. It means too much to too many people.
6
notgold - 1w
It's going to come to effort. Do I create a lemmy.whatever account or do I verify?
Verification isn't guaranteed and making my own instance is above dad effort territory. Maybe someone will begin a kiwi hosted aussie.zone 😁😁
I appreciate all the effort you guys have gone too though.
3
Nath - 1w
Nah, I don't think that's it. Your comment here constituted more effort than some responses we've received. We don't need much.
We're lucky in Australia in that there's a treasure trove of pop culture from the 20th century in our minds that isn't really on Google. Just talk about Nudge's antics or something. No kid will know who Nudge is, but he was a household name in the 80's. Or maybe Bobby's death and how that affected you? Google "Bobby's death" and you'll get the wrong Bobby.
5
notgold - 1w
Furry muff. I'll message molly with something about 80s tram tickets or something.
3
melbaboutown - 1w
Yes. I’d have the same response if I was able to get out more IRL and youse weren’t some of the only sane people on the internet
5
kalibri - 5day
Same, rather stop using than go through hoops. This site and everything else.
3
Nath - 3day
Ooh - I missed this update last week:
This genuinely boggles my mind. The government can make sentences like this, but they can't make them reality. Imagine if it said that only people with red hair were allowed to access the site. What technology exists to handle that? Because it is effectively what we are facing. We can only try our best - but we can't assure the government 100% that no user has tricked us onto the platform. And I'd still say that if I had the resources of Google to ensure compliance.
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No1 - 3day
people with red hair were allowed to access the site
At least Molly would be here to try and keep Pauline Hanson off.
7
melbaboutown - 3day
::: spoiler spoiler
:::
5
Gnugit - 2day
At this rate I think I'm going to pretend to be under sixteen and work out ways to get onto every age verified site..
I might even post about my findings for science "journalism" on some random pages that don't have age verifications.
5
Nath - 2day
I have a real 14-year-old in my house. I should see what accounts he can manage to create for himself.
5
Gnugit - 2day
I have instructed my two kids to NEVER give age verification documents and identity to websites and plan on helping my youngest circumvent it after they turn 16 because i don't want them on social media anyway.
6
Zagorath - 2day
According to the AFR...almost literally any. Many platforms don't even stop you if you tell them you're under 16. And none seemed to stop you viewing content if you told them you're an adult, without any further verification.
4
eureka - 2day
The dot points read like an instruction guide to me. I was musing about a week ago about making a backup Facebook account ahead of time and subscribing to insurance companies and marriage memes pages, or staging a trip to France.
membership in youth-focused groups, forums or communities
My Little Pony fans have been warned.
3
ikt - 1w
I just mentioned rewinding VHS tapes and loving limpbizkit, is this proof :|
I guess the question I have, what % of us are under 30? Do people under 30 know about the internet outside of instagram/reddit/facebook/youtube?
9
Zagorath - 1w
I was under 30 when I made this account.
I no longer am.
Dunno if that counts.
4
𝚝𝚛𝚔 - 1w
I was under 30 when I made this account.
I no longer am.
Happy birthday!
3
Nath - 1w
I'll have you know that I've had three birthdays since I created my account!
4
Zagorath - 1w
Yes, I can confirm I had a birthday at some point between 16 June 2023 and 2 December 2025.
3
𝚝𝚛𝚔 - 1w
Consider yourself doxxed 😎
3
zero_gravitas - 1w
Just be aware that there’s an infinitesimal chance (but not zero) that whatever you send may be sent to some government agency to demonstrate that we are complying with the law.
On this point, as I understand it, the personal information provided for verification can - and indeed should - be destroyed once it has been used for the purpose it was provided.
I assume you might need to keep a (non-identifying) record of how a user was age-verified to prove that you've been complying, but not the personal data used to do the verification.
Albo has been claiming that Australian privacy law requires that the data be destroyed once it's used for age verification, but the language of the law I think has 'reasonable' in there, which gives more wiggle room than the GDPR, for example. It was discussed on the Law Report on Radio National: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/lawreport/countdown-to-australia-s-social-media-ban/105871968 (sorry, no idea of the timestamp, and there doesn't seem to be a transcript either)
8
Nath - 1w
There is no requirement that the verification actually actually be personal information. So far, the responses have all convinced me they were of age, and zero of them have had any personal information. Only one user has included a part of themselves in a photo and it's probably my favourite response - but it isn't personally identifiable.
But you are also correct - we need to destroy stuff like government if provided. Which is even more work than this headache already is. So we don't want that as a method.
6
Almacca - 1w
Was that my bald head?
7
Nath - 1w
Hahahahaha yes!l but I wasn't going to say.
6
Almacca - 1w
I have no shame.
Pic in question -
18
Nath - 1w
Lodion and I both loved this one.
6
Zagorath - 1w
What do you mean Lodion and you. I thought Molly was doing the verification!
4
Almacca - 6day
It's crude, but effective.
2
Dimand - 1w
Love it!
4
gmask1 - 1w
Dang I wish I still had my usbourne programming books. Those little robots carrying 1’s and 0’s while I programmed in basic on the apple ][ were made for this verification.
Edit: my steam account just turned 21. That’s a bit terrifying actually, but it has a use.
8
melbaboutown - 1w
I just realised… we’re technically complying with the law by verifying but we’re all DMing a ‘16 year old’.
New legal issue created. /s
7
Nath - 1w
Huh. I was going to make some reference to 20-year-olds playing high school kids. But Molly genuinely was sixteen.
Colour me surprised.
12
zurohki - 1w
The 'drop her a message' link needs to be a lot more obvious, IMO.
7
Nath - 1w
Reading Comprehension and attention span are a part of the test.
19
Zagorath - 1w
Am I allowed to deliberately ignore that part of the message because it's more fun to be verified in public?
3
Nath - 1w
No. You won't be included in the compilation of compliant users when we go through the messages.
4
anotherspringchicken - 1w
If my comment history that includes whinging about the menopause doesn’t count, how about a HRT label pic? (Name redacted, of course)
(No? Dammit, looks like I’ll have to go out to a bar)
7
Zagorath - 1w
how about a HRT label pic
Definitely should qualify if you're in Queensland!
6
Aesecakes - 1w
Oh, hang on, I read this post when there were not many responses and I thought it was a piss take and had a laugh and moved on.
But coming back, it seems like I do have to send something to this bot? Still not clear what.
6
Aesecakes - 1w
Well, that's 5 mins of my time I will never get back. Having said that, I've also wasted an hour "talking" to a so-called "customer service" agent on a chat thing today, which was much more frustrating.
Edit - for reference, I pointed to a comment that I made 2 years ago about being alive in the 90s.
3
Mert - 1w
I have never heard of the breakfast club. I did go to the cinema to see Crocodile Dundee back in the 70's. I am 64 for fuchks sake.
5
Taleya - 1w
croc dundee wasn't the 70's was it? shit, I saw the sequel in cinemas and I was born in 78
2
Nath - 1w
Crocodile Dundee came out in 1986. Hoges was huge on TV in the 70's though - the Paul Hogan show ran for years. Fun fact: almost all of the Paul Hogan Show has been lost. It aired before VCRs were a thing and the station lost or over-wrote the original tapes.
2
Zagorath - 1w
Wait, you've never heard of it? Not having seen it is one thing, but never heard of it‽
2
Mert - 1w
I just looked for The Breakfast club and found I have a copy. My bad.
4
Mert - 1w
I will watch it soon.
2
Zagorath - 1w
To be honest, I've never seen it myself. I only know it through cultural osmosis. I've seen parodies and homages done in a bunch of TV shows.
I have heard it's very good though, so enjoy!
1
Grail (capitalised) - 6day
64 year old response right there
1
Fleur_ - 1w
Not me having no idea what the fuck that is
2
Zagorath - 1w
Haha fair enough! I guess it's not quite as widely spread as I thought.
1
Agent641 @lemmy.world - 1w
Will you accept a picture of two eight year olds?
5
eureka - 1w
9
hitmyspot - 1w
Lol, only when stack d in a trenchcoat (not an admin btw).
But if you are going to preemptively comply, taking the chinwag approach as you have seems like a pretty good method.
5
zero_gravitas - 1w
I had previously got a similar impression from the eSafety Commissioner's publication of those lists of platforms, but it does not seem to be the case they are actually defining regulation there. The lists seem to be, essentially, only statements of intent about which platforms that eSafety will seek enforcement of compliance on.
eSafety does not have a formal role in declaring which services are age-restricted social media platforms. In the absence of any rules made by the Minister of Communications specifying a service is either an age-restricted social media platform or not an age-restricted social media platform, any determination that a service is or is not an age-restricted social media platform is a matter for the court.
6
notleigh - 5day
I thought the same thing, but the trick mentioned on the esafety site is:
eSafety expects that all service providers with Australian end-users assess whether their services are age-restricted social media platforms and therefore required to comply with the SMMA obligation.
Now whether they can enforce (or care to enforce) is another thing. But they certainly seem to be pushing the obligation down to anyone running a service that could run afoul of the legislation.
3
melbaboutown - 1w
Can you tell her about the Breakfast Club that only 70’s/80’s kids from Queensland would know?
Hang on, is this to do with a free school breakfast program?
I have one old memory of free breakfast being held at my Melbourne primary school but I don’t think it lasted long for us.
Edit: Also does anyone remember the Victorian gas crisis where everyone was taking cold showers?
5
Bottom_racer - 1w
Yea the Longford esso explosion!
That's actually what I was gonna write about lol. I was yr 8 at the time. Had electric hot water so was very popular.
6
notgold - 1w
we had electric water heater then too. Amazing how many of my mates bussed to my place after school just for a hot shower.
5
Catfish - 1w
I heard about it but lived in NSW at the time. Got wierdedout at the idea of gas fridges, had never heard of such a thing.
Oh wow! That this came from a non-Queensland kid is extra surprising. Yes, this was the breakfast club. It gave us Agro by the way. Queensland kids knew Agro years before the rest of Australia.
2
melbaboutown - 7day
I didn’t actually watch it, I initially thought it was a government initiative/tuckshop thing like the free milk. Then when I saw free breakfast was still happening (so not useful for age purposes) I just googled Queensland breakfast club and the time matched up.
So technically I cheated. Sorry Agro.
However I do remember when you would buy jam in tins. Sliced pickled cucumbers too. And I remember being served pink junket. And being given cod liver oil.
I wasn’t vaccinated but was simply allowed to catch chickenpox >:( This was probably outdated even at the time (making me sound older than I am) but parents did historically hold ‘pox parties’ to get it over with all at once.
2
PeelerSheila - 6day
Junket! I remember the smell of junket tablets 🤤
4
Catfish - 6day
I still like it on occasion, but there is always 1 dodgy flavour in the packet that gets binned
3
butters - 3day
Junket is so underrated. Def needs a comeback. Pink panna cotta!
2
imoldgreeeg - 6day
Oh yeah.....oh I had suppressed that memory. I remember now.
1
Taleya - 5day
that one was hilarious, dad had electric hot water but a gas stove, we had gas hot water but an electric stove. We worked it out.
1
galoisghost - 1w
Would a message from a seven year old mastodon account work? I mean technically I could have made that when I was 8.
Or an old blog that I had back in 2012. I guess I could have been 3 when I wrote it. Certainly the writing could be that of a three year old.
5
Seagoon_ - 3day
So I went and grabbed a drink at a local, where do I send the pic?
4
CEOofmyhouse56 - 3day
Up the top where "her" is highlighted, press it, then press "send message".
Ohhh this must be why all the mods were asking me to send them naked photos of myself or be banned; for age verification! Makes so much sense now lol.
4
maniacalmanicmania - 1w
What happens to anyone that doesn't message Molly?
4
Gorgritch_Umie_Killa - 1w
15
Nath - 1w
Nothing immediately. Unless you claim to be a child and then we're legally obligated to ban you. But if you don't send a message, we will still need verification at a later time.
Please do it. We know it's dumb. None of this is our idea. It's already work reading the responses. It'll be more work to actually chase users later. So you'll help our overall workload if you take your name off the list of users who need to be verified later.
5
tuff_wizard - 1w
Do kids still watch round the twist when the teacher can’t be assed teaching that day?
4
Echinoderm - 1w
I don't know, but everyone's favourite substitute teacher at my school used to read us the Paul Jennings books in class before Round the Twist was even a thing.
3
NigelFrobisher - 1w
Is it ok if I turn 16 on December 11th?
3
Agent641 @lemmy.world - 1w
No, you don't have permission to turn 16
11
NigelFrobisher - 1w
Thank God. I couldn’t bear to go through that again.
6
Fleur_ - 1w
Oh God, oh fuck, you need to close Lemmy ASAP!!! Your brain is about to have the front fall off since your frontal cortex is underdeveloped and can't understand the shit fuck takes on Lemmy.
3
Zagorath - 1w
Proof of age:
I'm using method 3 and telling you that I never watched a lot of the show, but I have a very strong distinct memory of one episode of Round the Twist (last released in 2001, 24 years ago) where one of the characters gains the ability to read minds. But then it messes up and suddenly it reverses, so everyone can read their mind instead. That's the only episode that's absolutely seared into my brain for some reason.
I also distinctly remember at one point somewhere in the range '99-'04, a block of children's programming (I think it was on the ABC) on a Friday, which you knew was over when the MASH theme started playing. I've never properly watched the show, but Suicide is Painless is stuck in my head because of that fact. I don't even know how long that block of programming lasted.
3
Zozano - 1w
I can vouch for Zagorath being one foot in the grave.
Nobody under 18 could play Connections like Zaggy.
I'd have to double-check the wording to be 100% certain, but if you don't make accounts, I don't think it counts as social media.
1
Sarah - 3day
That's right and you can't have adult content or the site requires age verification anyway.
1
Gibsonhasafluffybutt - 1w
Sofia always rained on Blanche the horn dogs brigade. Does that work lol
3
Nath - 1w
No
2
Gibsonhasafluffybutt - 1w
Colour me shocked
1
Soirhyle - 1w
So, would posting at a not a bar, but a restaurant that also sells alcohol with a user name written with something like Rekorderlig (Swedish brand of Cider) also be acceptable? If so, I think that just might be doable. Better than being obliged to show a face at all.
3
Nath - 1w
I haven't looked at the dms in over a day, but to that point, exactly zero of the responses included a face, or anything identifiable.
The answer to your direct question is "yes", alcohol served to you at a restaurant would be just as fine as alcohol in a bar. The point to it is the setting. A kid can raid mum and Dad's liquor cabinet and pose a photo. Doing that in a restaurant is not so doable.
As a general guide for whatever you choose: what we are looking for is essentially 'could a kid have sent this?'
Only a 3-4 people had gone the alcohol route when I last checked.
6
Soirhyle - 7day
This would be actually one of the better ways to verify. No faces involved, and the government gets its wish of verification. A win for everyone. Now if all other sites followed this, would make things plenty easier at the least.
6
No1 - 3day
This is still a pain in the butt.
You don't know until you log in to a site whether they have assessed you as over 16, and also what type of verification they want. There's a bunch of sites that I only visit occasionally, and I guarantee it will be when I urgently need that information, that I get blocked.
I have different usernames for different sites/socials etc. I would either need to have my list of sites prepared and do one visit to the pub (awkward), or do it as needed (inconvenient and/or liver traumatising). See above for the problems with that - we don't know what each site/social will require, and they may not accept the bar/restaurant with alcohol method.
I'm not arguing with you guys, I'm just pissed off about the whole situation. It's a joke and every "verification method" is open to faking/abuse.
3
Impronoucabl @lemmy.world - 1w
I'm guessing with 2. I don't need to do anything?
2
Nath - 1w
Nope. We only need to ensure any accounts created on our platform comply.
3
ryannathans - 1w
Does that include if accessing the instance from overseas?
2
Nath - 1w
Yes, I'm sad to say.
Technically is applies to the whole Internet. If an Australian can make an account on your site in Iceland, you're supposed to comply with this law. That said, the government isn't making much of a thing about this, because they know full well that it'll have an adverse affect on the population (those sites will simply block Australia rather than comply). There are a few sites (eg Facebook, YouTube, Instagram) they are getting to comply, because there are Millions of Australians on these sites and it's worth those companies' while to retain these users and comply.
Then the government has a precedent: "See? That site over there complied, if you ever want to be as big as them, you need to also!"
2
Alamutjones - 1w
Hi Molly. I’m a bona fide fossil
2
palarith - 2day
Is she supposed to reply?
2
Nath - 2day
Not instantly.
I'll go through all the DMs soon (I was going to go through them on the weekend but, December) and send replies. Yes, replies will come from Molly.
4
palarith - 2day
Oh good, I thought I failed
1
melbaboutown - 7day
Oh god. Does anyone remember FoxPro
2
sobriquet - 7day
What about HyperCard? I remember being really excited when HyperCard came out with colour…
4
melbaboutown - 7day
Yeah HyperCard was a bit before my time.
I do remember hypercolour which was something completely different
2
Catfish - 6day
People putting inappropriate hand prints on each other's clothes all the time
2
sobriquet - 5day
Inappropriate, but fun! 🤣
3
ryannathans - 3day
Remember? We still gotta deal with that shit at work
2
melbaboutown - 3day
Luckily I was able to memorise enough of a program to produce a broken database and a B+ then move on
2
Skavau - 4day
I thought the Australian system only applied to specific social media websites that they drew up?
2
ryannathans - 3day
They just clarified a few, e.g. doesn't apply to 4chan or roblox but does apply to reddit
1
Skavau - 3day
How does that work in their head. 4chan is exempt. Yes, lets get under 16 years old off of Reddit and direct them to 4chan?
???????
7
melbaboutown - 3day
4chan are fighting it and they reckon they’re going to deal with 4chan in the next wave of restrictions. I’m bringing popcorn
2
rickywithanm - 3day
I bet they are left 4chan alone knowing they’d be the first to not comply and poke holes in this ban
3
melbaboutown - 3day
Nah, Ofcom tried to fine 4chan and another site for noncompliance and those sites are suing Ofcom
4chan doesn't require user accounts, the law only applies to platforms where you need user accounts
1
Skavau - 3day
That's fine, but it's an obvious technicality isn't it?
"Oh your side has outrageous content that could harm children? Oh, it's okay. You don't have user accounts. Carry on."
2
ryannathans - 3day
Proof it's not about "protecting children" when the most child unfriendly social media sites are not impacted
2
Skavau - 3day
What that means technically is that the Fediverse could just allow non-account posting whilst verifying everyone who makes accounts. What a laughable law. At least in the UK, we didn't allow such a loophole even if we can't do anything to 4chan.
2
ryannathans - 3day
Nailed it
They could just release some tools to parents to monitor/block sites but that would be too logical
1
Pup Biru - 1day
i agree that it’s not about protecting kids - is it ever? - but i also think that IF this were something conducted in good faith (it’s not), then the process would be pretty similar: gated access is the easy fix, so you work that out first (like a minimum viable product), and then work on the harder parts later
1
ryannathans - 22hr
If conducted in good faith they would have discussed it with industry like everything else they do and industry would have worked with them to produce a solution that isn't brain dead
Like zero knowledge proofs for being over 18
1
rickywithanm - 3day
Roblox the kid friendly game that protects child predators 🙃
2
melbaboutown - 3day
Fuuuuuck. This is happening over different countries (Australia, US, UK and Europe) which I knew but I didn’t realise it was going after the small forums and forcing them to shut down.
I would very much like to see any amusing pics that people are using as proof. You know if they are keen to post it here as well.
I'm racking my brain trying to come up with something funny to send in.
1
Nath - 3day
We aren't going to make public what people have given us in confidence. That's simply not happening.
We might share some of the text-based responses as reference examples to inspire others, but it's an emphatic "no" on anything that has an above 0% chance of doxxing our people. Which will likely be all the photos.
We love you guys too much to remotely entertain that risk.
9
INHALE_VEGETABLES - 3day
Of course, I'd be as outraged as everyone else haha
But if anyone wants to post their own here I think there might be some amusing ones for sure.
2
melbaboutown - 4day
Photo of your old JNCOs or hammer pants
2
INHALE_VEGETABLES - 3day
I'll post my scrotum and ask if they have ever seen a 16yos ball sack with that many wrinkles.
2
dockedatthewrongworf - 3day
Whelp, forgot to get a photo from a pub. Hopefully it's fine to get a photo on the 10th... Otherwise all I have to show is my old Gameboy colour and Pokemon games from when I was a kid...
featured! - Nath in meta
As of December 10th, You need to be sixteen to hold an Aussie.Zone account
I know - you're very probably already sixteen. That's why we are here.
If you've managed to miss the coming change in the law, I envy you. This silly law has taken up several hours of my year that could have been spent doing something more productive like watching Golden Girls.
But, the law is here now and we need to take "Reasonable Steps" to ensure that everyone is over sixteen. If you are wondering what "reasonable steps" is, then join the club. Nobody really knows. What I do know is that we have to start to make an effort to be sure that no young'uns are here against the law.
To that end, we have hired a helpful bot called Molly. She's an expert at being sixteen and she's just been told that it's her job is to verify all your ages. Here she is:
What's next? Well, in the first phase we ask that you drop her a Message that verifies you are over 16. She doesn't want to see your government ID. Some ideas that she would accept are:
There's no need to spend a lot of time on this. At this point, I'll go through the users who have messaged her and compile a list of people who have verified their age. You can be creative. Just be aware that there's an infinitesimal chance (but not zero) that whatever you send may be sent to some government agency to demonstrate that we are complying with the law.
Frequently Asked Questions:
I no longer drink, don’t have a car and don’t wish to appear in any photos. And despite having been a redditor for 12 years, changing handles frequently for privacy means I’ve been Melbaboutown for much less than that. I’m not sharing any other accounts as the long term ones are doxable.
It sucks that Lemmy is being forced to do this and I wouldn’t even humour it for a second if it wasn’t you guys asking.
Guess if I want to keep talking to you awesome units Molly is just going to have to hear about my calcium pills, gaming off floppy discs as a child, and how I still have the Walkman I owned as a teen. Also Video Ezy and Blockbuster.
Whether the government wants to believe me is up to them.
I just added my aussie.zone nick to my reddit profile. Considering that account itself is almost a teenager, should be good.
Don't make me break out my livejournal. I'll do it. I'm a madwoman.
Annoyingly I deleted my MySpace, Friendster and all my old school forums are gone.
My first Facebook account probably is 16 (late adopter) but I shut it down and wouldn’t be sharing that anyway
Can't break out livejournal without agreeing to the stupid Russian t&c we all ported to Dreamwidth to avoid. I could get back into that one or Fetlife but Nath might faint.
I talked about the first album I ever bought (midnight oil's 10-1 album), my first boyfriend's car (1979 Gemini), the first cassingle I ever bought (Suzanne Vega) and my first picture disc (Bros). I feel like if you're under 16 you wouldn't understand a percentage of that statement 😆
If it was Tom's Diner, that song has a special place in digital music history. It was the test song for what became the MP3 standard.
It was!
Dang. I'm a little younger than you. We had floppy disks when I was in year 1 & 2, but I remember having a Powerpoint project where some of the kids' Powerpoint files were too big to fit on a floppy.
I think this was my first game as a little tacker. Text based.
https://archive.org/details/msdos_Castaway_1986
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/castaway-gjc
This one's more my era: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoombinis
Or: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putt-Putt_(series)
I played those too when they came out
Mutha fuckin Zoombinis
It's on Steam BTW.
Haha yeah I know! I was actually watching a streamer (who mostly streams completely unrelated stuff—Photoshopping thumbnails for others' aoe2 YouTube channels) just a few weeks ago, and the topic of Zoombinis came up. She's apparently the moderator of the Zoombinis speedrunning records. Which...is apparently a thing.
University was a horror of finding out your assignment was too big to save on the floppy you had picked, and going through your whole stash trying to find one it would fit on, or having to delete some file share game before you lost the whole thing.
Dayum, you were using floppies to hold multiple different unrelated files? Like a USB today?
Most of us carried around about 10 floppies in a case. I had a fancy case that held 15 floppies and expanded out like a little set of stairs.
Most files we carried around were well under 100kb. We didn't carry photos around, digital cameras weren't a thing and we didn't scan photos unless they were going into a specific file or something.
If I did have to carry a file that was larger than 1.44mb, I used arj to compress it and split the archive into 1440kb volumes. Arj had better compression than zip.
Yes? Had to get them to campus to print and drop in the department office box to get stamped by 5pm or points off.
Damn, that's just wild to me. As I said above, I came in near the end of their era, so just storing one project on there was at times stretching the limits of what they could do. It's kind of incredible to think of how far we've come.
No inbuilt hard drive, so it really did fucking matter! (Mac Plus and SE) still love some of the games. Try Fools Errand if you can get the emulator to work 😺
I suspect if this comes to a head you can just change instances to one offshore .
If they start blocking tiny websites "not complying" then shit has really hit the fan.
My pet conspiracy theory is that corporations pushed for this so they can collect your ID and even more personal information you should never share with anyone on the internet.
Fuck this law is so dumb
I might, it’s just a hassle. I can’t be stuffed.
And I find it kinda plausible. Maybe it wasn’t the main driver, that’s the Australian government having a knee jerk response to look like they’re solving a complex problem. But for lucrative data brokers it is very very convenient.
It would have perhaps been better to give under 16s dumb phones and have a family computer room, or just talk to your damn kid about what they’re doing and seeing online. But that doesn’t dump highly sensitive info out to create advertising profiles and sell.
Hi, Brit here.
I'm confused. I thought the rules from Australia here only applied to specific platforms rather than anywhere. I read somewhere about specific platforms being considered exempt. The likelihood to me that the Australian government (or your Ofcom equivalent) even know about the Fediverse to me seems slim.
They seem to for now?
From what I can tell these relaxed measures for Aussie Zone are pre-emptive, to establish that ‘reasonable steps’ were taken and hopefully avoid being pressured to demand more intrusive verification in future.
However that doesn’t mean things won’t change. Afaik Dreamwidth and 4chan are litigating to not have to comply. And more sites could be brought in during the second wave.
I see the UK government has noticed Bsky (part of the fediverse) and demanded verification there so it’s possible ours might learn what it is as well.
Creepily the UK also seem to be making tentative noises about VPNs now.
What could Australia possibly do, other than geoblocking 4chan, if they don't comply exactly?
Bluesky is much larger than the Fediverse here to be fair. It's not the same. Moreover, they'd have to individually investigate hundreds of instances as they are all independently run.
Eh, nothing concrete. What are you referring to?
They could probably just geoblock 4chan I guess? Maybe? Or try to? I don’t know what the government think they’re going to do. But Mississippi residents did get geoblocked from Bsky.
I hope you’re right and we just keep flying under the radar. Especially as they’d probably try to use AI for the workload of hundreds of instances, with not great outcomes.
Yeah, nothing concrete. And they claimed to have nothing concrete in mind. But they’re definitely thinking about it, I’ll see if I can find the article again
Edit: Ok, so they ‘have no plan to ban VPNs’, but ‘are looking very closely into their usage’. I have no idea what that means.
https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/could-vpns-be-banned-uk-government-to-look-very-closely-into-their-usage-amid-mass-usage-since-the-age-verification-row
Well yeah, literally all they could do is geoblock 4chan.
I am a Brit.
Absolutely nothing lol.
Great idea. Adding Lemmy and Mastodon to my 4-digit Slashdot.org profile now.
Edit. Done, sort off.
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/09/2112230/millions-of-australian-teens-lose-access-to-social-media-as-ban-takes-effect
Well the Mighty Boosh was 20 years ago, and I have clearly drunk baileys from a shoe...
.. but in seriousness thanks Nath. Love this little corner of the interwebs and appreciate you dealing with this stupidity to keep it rolling
I assert that imoldgreeeg..... IS ACTUALLY YOUNG GREEEG!
Talk to molly about your mangina !
One of the places I work at has a display cabinet showing historical media formats and devices, seeing things in it like the zip disc and the Sony camera that took floppies always makes me feel like Elrond:
Zip disks ain't that old!
Fixing computers on location I once saw a word processor (as in, a very limited specialised computer for writing text, not the software for general purpose computers that killed 'em) on display. Now that was old.
(Not as old as the completely mechanical typewriter I wrote my school essays with, though.)
Mum had a Compaq with a 5.25" in the side of the screen. Ran Zork and some lame work shit she needed.
That's what I like to think as well, but I guess it has been a while. It's like how I think 90s cars are still fairly recent until I see ones rolling around with historic rego...
Just a thanks to everyone involved with keeping things running here and dealing with not only our stupidity, but the stupidity of our stupid government.
And, Molly! Whoooooo, girrrrrrrrrrrrl! You have a job ahead of you! Good luck and thank you to you too!
(Edit: And I think I messed up my submission already sorry 🫣)
This account will be visiting from another geolocation which isn't subject to Australian laws and will henceforth identify as a foreign bot trying to disrupt Australian society and promote disunity. I request to be labelled as a foreign asset, not subject to age authorisation. In small print add "works for gambling industry, owns coal mine, makes political donations, VIP, mates with Albo and the Pope"
Well don't drag me into disrupting australian society please. I have other stuff on my plate already.
What if I promise faithfully (so help me Dog) that I am over 16? If that doesn’t work, my 20 year old son will vouch for me. And anyone else willing to pay him.
Thanks for bringing that up. The good news is that it only affects users at our instance. I should make that clearer on the title. That's one of the reasons the law is pointless. A kid can sign up at another instance that isn't in Australia and be otherwise unaffected.
Finally, an intelligent bot. 🧪🔬
Next, we'll invent intelligent users.
These strategies are quite nice. I was worried I would have to show my license which I’m not entirely comfortable with. I can easily talk about how my friend skateboarded to my house after the breakfast club first aired so we could excitedly discuss it and I could take a photo of drinking a pint while driving. Easy.
Just want to add at this point that I am loving this post and all the responses. Getting old is so bittersweet 😔
What happens if I don't get around to it by the 10th? Will my account be deleted, or temporarily disabled until I provide proof? I likely won't be able to do it in time.
Also, is it ok to send govt ID with the info blacked out (with Date of birth visible)?
This is the first round of verification. There will be more than one. At some point I'll resort to sending direct messages to stragglers.
The law is vague about our requirements. It's vague on lots of things.
We need to proactively ban users who identify themselves as children. We don't have to immediately ban every unverified account, but at some point we're going to need to have some sort of record of age verification for active users.
Waste of everyone's time? Yep.
I don't envy your position.
I'm certain that this new law has nothing to do with protecting children, and only exists to provide a way for AI companies to start making money.
Na, its to pop a cultural crisis balloon the media was blowing up last year.
There will be some tangential benefits, i think the no alcohol before 18 is a good analogy, the only problem is there can be some benefits to social media, whereas theres not a really an upside to alcohol.
But largely its due to talk-back wankers, and the Government not wanting a distracting fake cultural crisis. Commercial media in this country suck large round ones.
Anyway, thats my view.
I do worry where this is going as more countries do this kind of shit.
On that front, we're a little fortunate. One of the whitepapers I saw on the legislation essentially spruiked a whole industry poised to offer sites 'age verification services'. By getting in ahead of all that and verifying our users using methods our own users themselves define, we're avoiding that noise.
And the users have been wonderful. I've always loved the support of this crowd and they haven't let us down on this matter, either. By simply leaving it with you all to go ahead and define your own verification means, you've come up with loads of unique stuff that I would never have thought of. And by keeping it all funnelled to DMs the way we have, no AI is going to learn anything from you.
If we are singled out to demonstrate that we took reasonable steps, I'd love to present the evidence that we have complied with the legislation. They can't complain that our methods fail to meet some standard, as they haven't provided a standard. I honestly believe I could go all the way to court with the messages that you've sent in as "any reasonable person would believe this was sent by someone over sixteen". If that turns into some sort of thing that goes 'ok, you need to do x to verify ages in future', we've beaten all such changes by being grandfathered in on our own system.
I'd love for you to share the de-identified messages. We're a clever bunch here and I'd love to see how we all responded.
Maybe a few of them and after a bit. I can't think of any examples so far of two people doing the same thing, but I also don't want to take dozens of means off the table for future respondents. One user already shared his genius method, and I suppose that method is still available for others to use. 😆
There is no way some other lazy person hasn't done the same thing I did.
Yeah same. I'm currently overseas and still will be on the 10th. I don't drink, and I'm born in the earlyish noughties so I can't provide a very convincing spiel.
After reading through the post I will be jumping ship, later boys I'll see you in another instance
How about an account I created 20 years ago, does that count? 😁
https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/user/75046
That would absolutely count if you can somehow send Molly a message she can verify from that account. Make a post form your sixteen-year old Whirlpool/Reddit/etc account saying that you are user@aussie.zone and then send the link to the post to Molly. Sorted.
Added my username to the profile page and messaged that, cause I'm proactive 💪💪
I've got one even older than that!
https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/user/579
Holy smokes, triple digits 😳... What a flex
I missed out on a six-digit icq number by about a week. My mate. My mate didn't miss out and yeah - it was quite the flex giving out his six digit icq.
It's funny how the mainstream media has focused only on listing the big social media giants as being the targets.
I've also had a message from another not so mainstream hookup app that the proof of age is coming and to prepared to comply. How remains to be seen.
I must say I really like the idea of ordering a drink at a bar with the user name.
Is there going to be a spike in alcohol sales because of this ban?
Could i even say... beer and pints.. to the moon?!? 🌜🪙🍺💱🍻💲🌛
Watch out bars of Australia! Here comes the Lemmy wave!
I'll write my username above my pubes with a sharpie. That'll prove I'm 16, yeah?
What do you think this is bush week?
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Everyone photograph your antacid collection!
Thanks for your efforts.
You can delete this account if you feel the need to, not interested in all verification stuff, even if is half arsed.
Actually joined the Internet when I was 16 back in 1994. Back then using Excite to search the Internet was better than what Google is today.
Massively adult take right here.
While we have tried to make the verification system as light-touch and unobtrusive as we can, we need to accept that this policy will cost us users. Just as we have no influence on government policy, we have no control on how people will respond to our willingness to obey the law.
I even understand it. If Canada introduced some sort of law that required me to do something I couldn't justify, I'd likely let my lemmy.ca test account lapse. People are going to evaluate their own position from evaluating the variables in front of them. And some of them are going to come down on their Aussie.Zone account not being worth that much to them. Which is totally fine.
I know you're probably getting hassle comments about these laws and policies. I hope everyone on the site appreciates these bullshit hoops you're being made to jump through. You could just shut the site down and be done with it.
We aren't copping any abuse. Everyone understands that this isn't coming from us and that there is no point hassling us over it.
Shutting the instance down is not on the cards. It means too much to too many people.
It's going to come to effort. Do I create a lemmy.whatever account or do I verify? Verification isn't guaranteed and making my own instance is above dad effort territory. Maybe someone will begin a kiwi hosted aussie.zone 😁😁 I appreciate all the effort you guys have gone too though.
Nah, I don't think that's it. Your comment here constituted more effort than some responses we've received. We don't need much.
We're lucky in Australia in that there's a treasure trove of pop culture from the 20th century in our minds that isn't really on Google. Just talk about Nudge's antics or something. No kid will know who Nudge is, but he was a household name in the 80's. Or maybe Bobby's death and how that affected you? Google "Bobby's death" and you'll get the wrong Bobby.
Furry muff. I'll message molly with something about 80s tram tickets or something.
Yes. I’d have the same response if I was able to get out more IRL and youse weren’t some of the only sane people on the internet
Same, rather stop using than go through hoops. This site and everything else.
Ooh - I missed this update last week:
This genuinely boggles my mind. The government can make sentences like this, but they can't make them reality. Imagine if it said that only people with red hair were allowed to access the site. What technology exists to handle that? Because it is effectively what we are facing. We can only try our best - but we can't assure the government 100% that no user has tricked us onto the platform. And I'd still say that if I had the resources of Google to ensure compliance.
At least Molly would be here to try and keep Pauline Hanson off.
::: spoiler spoiler
:::
At this rate I think I'm going to pretend to be under sixteen and work out ways to get onto every age verified site..
I might even post about my findings for science "journalism" on some random pages that don't have age verifications.
I have a real 14-year-old in my house. I should see what accounts he can manage to create for himself.
I have instructed my two kids to NEVER give age verification documents and identity to websites and plan on helping my youngest circumvent it after they turn 16 because i don't want them on social media anyway.
According to the AFR...almost literally any. Many platforms don't even stop you if you tell them you're under 16. And none seemed to stop you viewing content if you told them you're an adult, without any further verification.
The dot points read like an instruction guide to me. I was musing about a week ago about making a backup Facebook account ahead of time and subscribing to insurance companies and marriage memes pages, or staging a trip to France.
My Little Pony fans have been warned.
I just mentioned rewinding VHS tapes and loving limpbizkit, is this proof :|
https://aussie.zone/post/27191076/20122605
I guess the question I have, what % of us are under 30? Do people under 30 know about the internet outside of instagram/reddit/facebook/youtube?
I was under 30 when I made this account.
I no longer am.
Dunno if that counts.
Happy birthday!
I'll have you know that I've had three birthdays since I created my account!
Yes, I can confirm I had a birthday at some point between 16 June 2023 and 2 December 2025.
Consider yourself doxxed 😎
On this point, as I understand it, the personal information provided for verification can - and indeed should - be destroyed once it has been used for the purpose it was provided.
I assume you might need to keep a (non-identifying) record of how a user was age-verified to prove that you've been complying, but not the personal data used to do the verification.
Albo has been claiming that Australian privacy law requires that the data be destroyed once it's used for age verification, but the language of the law I think has 'reasonable' in there, which gives more wiggle room than the GDPR, for example. It was discussed on the Law Report on Radio National: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/lawreport/countdown-to-australia-s-social-media-ban/105871968 (sorry, no idea of the timestamp, and there doesn't seem to be a transcript either)
There is no requirement that the verification actually actually be personal information. So far, the responses have all convinced me they were of age, and zero of them have had any personal information. Only one user has included a part of themselves in a photo and it's probably my favourite response - but it isn't personally identifiable.
But you are also correct - we need to destroy stuff like government if provided. Which is even more work than this headache already is. So we don't want that as a method.
Was that my bald head?
Hahahahaha yes!l but I wasn't going to say.
I have no shame.
Pic in question -
Lodion and I both loved this one.
What do you mean Lodion and you. I thought Molly was doing the verification!
It's crude, but effective.
Love it!
Dang I wish I still had my usbourne programming books. Those little robots carrying 1’s and 0’s while I programmed in basic on the apple ][ were made for this verification.
Edit: my steam account just turned 21. That’s a bit terrifying actually, but it has a use.
I just realised… we’re technically complying with the law by verifying but we’re all DMing a ‘16 year old’.
New legal issue created. /s
Huh. I was going to make some reference to 20-year-olds playing high school kids. But Molly genuinely was sixteen.
Colour me surprised.
The 'drop her a message' link needs to be a lot more obvious, IMO.
Reading Comprehension and attention span are a part of the test.
Am I allowed to deliberately ignore that part of the message because it's more fun to be verified in public?
No. You won't be included in the compilation of compliant users when we go through the messages.
If my comment history that includes whinging about the menopause doesn’t count, how about a HRT label pic? (Name redacted, of course)
(No? Dammit, looks like I’ll have to go out to a bar)
Definitely should qualify if you're in Queensland!
Oh, hang on, I read this post when there were not many responses and I thought it was a piss take and had a laugh and moved on.
But coming back, it seems like I do have to send something to this bot? Still not clear what.
Well, that's 5 mins of my time I will never get back. Having said that, I've also wasted an hour "talking" to a so-called "customer service" agent on a chat thing today, which was much more frustrating.
Edit - for reference, I pointed to a comment that I made 2 years ago about being alive in the 90s.
I have never heard of the breakfast club. I did go to the cinema to see Crocodile Dundee back in the 70's. I am 64 for fuchks sake.
croc dundee wasn't the 70's was it? shit, I saw the sequel in cinemas and I was born in 78
Crocodile Dundee came out in 1986. Hoges was huge on TV in the 70's though - the Paul Hogan show ran for years. Fun fact: almost all of the Paul Hogan Show has been lost. It aired before VCRs were a thing and the station lost or over-wrote the original tapes.
Wait, you've never heard of it? Not having seen it is one thing, but never heard of it‽
I just looked for The Breakfast club and found I have a copy. My bad.
I will watch it soon.
To be honest, I've never seen it myself. I only know it through cultural osmosis. I've seen parodies and homages done in a bunch of TV shows.
I have heard it's very good though, so enjoy!
64 year old response right there
Not me having no idea what the fuck that is
Haha fair enough! I guess it's not quite as widely spread as I thought.
Will you accept a picture of two eight year olds?
Lol, only when stack d in a trenchcoat (not an admin btw).
“Not happy Jan!”
Fwiw although the legislation says it applies to all social media, it seems as though the regulation that's been imposed by the eSafety commissioner to actually implement that legislation relies on designating platforms. And AZ has not been designated. Only "Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X, YouTube, Kick and Reddit are age-restricted platforms". So it seems as though there may not be any obligation for us to comply.
IANAL though, so take this with salt.
But if you are going to preemptively comply, taking the chinwag approach as you have seems like a pretty good method.
I had previously got a similar impression from the eSafety Commissioner's publication of those lists of platforms, but it does not seem to be the case they are actually defining regulation there. The lists seem to be, essentially, only statements of intent about which platforms that eSafety will seek enforcement of compliance on.
See here: https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-us/industry-regulation/social-media-age-restrictions/which-platforms-are-age-restricted
I thought the same thing, but the trick mentioned on the esafety site is:
Now whether they can enforce (or care to enforce) is another thing. But they certainly seem to be pushing the obligation down to anyone running a service that could run afoul of the legislation.
Hang on, is this to do with a free school breakfast program?
I have one old memory of free breakfast being held at my Melbourne primary school but I don’t think it lasted long for us.
Edit: Also does anyone remember the Victorian gas crisis where everyone was taking cold showers?
Yea the Longford esso explosion!
That's actually what I was gonna write about lol. I was yr 8 at the time. Had electric hot water so was very popular.
we had electric water heater then too. Amazing how many of my mates bussed to my place after school just for a hot shower.
I heard about it but lived in NSW at the time. Got wierdedout at the idea of gas fridges, had never heard of such a thing.
Oh ok it was a kids tv show https://www.reddit.com/r/brisbane/comments/lkzku4/brisbane_tv_from_the_olden_times/
Not from Brisbane so I would never have got that.
Oh wow! That this came from a non-Queensland kid is extra surprising. Yes, this was the breakfast club. It gave us Agro by the way. Queensland kids knew Agro years before the rest of Australia.
I didn’t actually watch it, I initially thought it was a government initiative/tuckshop thing like the free milk. Then when I saw free breakfast was still happening (so not useful for age purposes) I just googled Queensland breakfast club and the time matched up.
So technically I cheated. Sorry Agro.
However I do remember when you would buy jam in tins. Sliced pickled cucumbers too. And I remember being served pink junket. And being given cod liver oil.
I wasn’t vaccinated but was simply allowed to catch chickenpox >:( This was probably outdated even at the time (making me sound older than I am) but parents did historically hold ‘pox parties’ to get it over with all at once.
Junket! I remember the smell of junket tablets 🤤
I still like it on occasion, but there is always 1 dodgy flavour in the packet that gets binned
Junket is so underrated. Def needs a comeback. Pink panna cotta!
Oh yeah.....oh I had suppressed that memory. I remember now.
that one was hilarious, dad had electric hot water but a gas stove, we had gas hot water but an electric stove. We worked it out.
Would a message from a seven year old mastodon account work? I mean technically I could have made that when I was 8.
Or an old blog that I had back in 2012. I guess I could have been 3 when I wrote it. Certainly the writing could be that of a three year old.
So I went and grabbed a drink at a local, where do I send the pic?
Up the top where "her" is highlighted, press it, then press "send message".
Send Message to Molly
Ohhh this must be why all the mods were asking me to send them naked photos of myself or be banned; for age verification! Makes so much sense now lol.
What happens to anyone that doesn't message Molly?
Nothing immediately. Unless you claim to be a child and then we're legally obligated to ban you. But if you don't send a message, we will still need verification at a later time.
Please do it. We know it's dumb. None of this is our idea. It's already work reading the responses. It'll be more work to actually chase users later. So you'll help our overall workload if you take your name off the list of users who need to be verified later.
Do kids still watch round the twist when the teacher can’t be assed teaching that day?
I don't know, but everyone's favourite substitute teacher at my school used to read us the Paul Jennings books in class before Round the Twist was even a thing.
Is it ok if I turn 16 on December 11th?
No, you don't have permission to turn 16
Thank God. I couldn’t bear to go through that again.
Oh God, oh fuck, you need to close Lemmy ASAP!!! Your brain is about to have the front fall off since your frontal cortex is underdeveloped and can't understand the shit fuck takes on Lemmy.
Proof of age:
I'm using method 3 and telling you that I never watched a lot of the show, but I have a very strong distinct memory of one episode of Round the Twist (last released in 2001, 24 years ago) where one of the characters gains the ability to read minds. But then it messes up and suddenly it reverses, so everyone can read their mind instead. That's the only episode that's absolutely seared into my brain for some reason.
I also distinctly remember at one point somewhere in the range '99-'04, a block of children's programming (I think it was on the ABC) on a Friday, which you knew was over when the MASH theme started playing. I've never properly watched the show, but Suicide is Painless is stuck in my head because of that fact. I don't even know how long that block of programming lasted.
I can vouch for Zagorath being one foot in the grave.
Nobody under 18 could play Connections like Zaggy.
Oof, you just have to say that today‽ After my terrible performance on yesterday's Connections?
Oh and if that's not enough, hopefully you can believe that I didn't have Reddit at the age of 3 years old on an account that is today 13?
Aus Independents Anon Image Boards:
https://ausinds.com/image-boards/
No Login, no age verification.
No adult content :(
I'd have to double-check the wording to be 100% certain, but if you don't make accounts, I don't think it counts as social media.
That's right and you can't have adult content or the site requires age verification anyway.
Sofia always rained on Blanche the horn dogs brigade. Does that work lol
No
Colour me shocked
So, would posting at a not a bar, but a restaurant that also sells alcohol with a user name written with something like Rekorderlig (Swedish brand of Cider) also be acceptable? If so, I think that just might be doable. Better than being obliged to show a face at all.
I haven't looked at the dms in over a day, but to that point, exactly zero of the responses included a face, or anything identifiable.
The answer to your direct question is "yes", alcohol served to you at a restaurant would be just as fine as alcohol in a bar. The point to it is the setting. A kid can raid mum and Dad's liquor cabinet and pose a photo. Doing that in a restaurant is not so doable.
As a general guide for whatever you choose: what we are looking for is essentially 'could a kid have sent this?'
Only a 3-4 people had gone the alcohol route when I last checked.
This would be actually one of the better ways to verify. No faces involved, and the government gets its wish of verification. A win for everyone. Now if all other sites followed this, would make things plenty easier at the least.
This is still a pain in the butt.
I'm not arguing with you guys, I'm just pissed off about the whole situation. It's a joke and every "verification method" is open to faking/abuse.
I'm guessing with 2. I don't need to do anything?
Nope. We only need to ensure any accounts created on our platform comply.
Does that include if accessing the instance from overseas?
Yes, I'm sad to say.
Technically is applies to the whole Internet. If an Australian can make an account on your site in Iceland, you're supposed to comply with this law. That said, the government isn't making much of a thing about this, because they know full well that it'll have an adverse affect on the population (those sites will simply block Australia rather than comply). There are a few sites (eg Facebook, YouTube, Instagram) they are getting to comply, because there are Millions of Australians on these sites and it's worth those companies' while to retain these users and comply.
Then the government has a precedent: "See? That site over there complied, if you ever want to be as big as them, you need to also!"
Hi Molly. I’m a bona fide fossil
Is she supposed to reply?
Not instantly. I'll go through all the DMs soon (I was going to go through them on the weekend but, December) and send replies. Yes, replies will come from Molly.
Oh good, I thought I failed
Oh god. Does anyone remember FoxPro
What about HyperCard? I remember being really excited when HyperCard came out with colour…
Yeah HyperCard was a bit before my time.
I do remember hypercolour which was something completely different
People putting inappropriate hand prints on each other's clothes all the time
Inappropriate, but fun! 🤣
Remember? We still gotta deal with that shit at work
Luckily I was able to memorise enough of a program to produce a broken database and a B+ then move on
I thought the Australian system only applied to specific social media websites that they drew up?
They just clarified a few, e.g. doesn't apply to 4chan or roblox but does apply to reddit
How does that work in their head. 4chan is exempt. Yes, lets get under 16 years old off of Reddit and direct them to 4chan?
???????
4chan are fighting it and they reckon they’re going to deal with 4chan in the next wave of restrictions. I’m bringing popcorn
I bet they are left 4chan alone knowing they’d be the first to not comply and poke holes in this ban
Nah, Ofcom tried to fine 4chan and another site for noncompliance and those sites are suing Ofcom
https://www.courthousenews.com/4chan-challenges-uk-age-verification-laws-as-censorship/
https://cybernews.com/security/4chan-kiwi-farms-sue-british-regulator-ofcom-age-verification/
4chan doesn't require user accounts, the law only applies to platforms where you need user accounts
That's fine, but it's an obvious technicality isn't it?
"Oh your side has outrageous content that could harm children? Oh, it's okay. You don't have user accounts. Carry on."
Proof it's not about "protecting children" when the most child unfriendly social media sites are not impacted
What that means technically is that the Fediverse could just allow non-account posting whilst verifying everyone who makes accounts. What a laughable law. At least in the UK, we didn't allow such a loophole even if we can't do anything to 4chan.
Nailed it
They could just release some tools to parents to monitor/block sites but that would be too logical
i agree that it’s not about protecting kids - is it ever? - but i also think that IF this were something conducted in good faith (it’s not), then the process would be pretty similar: gated access is the easy fix, so you work that out first (like a minimum viable product), and then work on the harder parts later
If conducted in good faith they would have discussed it with industry like everything else they do and industry would have worked with them to produce a solution that isn't brain dead
Like zero knowledge proofs for being over 18
Roblox the kid friendly game that protects child predators 🙃
Fuuuuuck. This is happening over different countries (Australia, US, UK and Europe) which I knew but I didn’t realise it was going after the small forums and forcing them to shut down.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/09/age-verification-windfall-big-tech-and-death-sentence-smaller-platforms
(From a link in the article) the UK one forced a Linux gaming forum to close https://web.archive.org/web/20250102185206/https://www.gamingonlinux.com/forum/topic/6463/
Plus a bunch of others.
I would very much like to see any amusing pics that people are using as proof. You know if they are keen to post it here as well.
I'm racking my brain trying to come up with something funny to send in.
We aren't going to make public what people have given us in confidence. That's simply not happening.
We might share some of the text-based responses as reference examples to inspire others, but it's an emphatic "no" on anything that has an above 0% chance of doxxing our people. Which will likely be all the photos.
We love you guys too much to remotely entertain that risk.
Of course, I'd be as outraged as everyone else haha
But if anyone wants to post their own here I think there might be some amusing ones for sure.
Photo of your old JNCOs or hammer pants
I'll post my scrotum and ask if they have ever seen a 16yos ball sack with that many wrinkles.
Whelp, forgot to get a photo from a pub. Hopefully it's fine to get a photo on the 10th... Otherwise all I have to show is my old Gameboy colour and Pokemon games from when I was a kid...